--- title: Sarah Knott's Mother is a Verb Explores History of Mothers description: The historian's new book blends memoir and history to tell the story of motherhood through the ages. canonical: https://time.com/5564180/mother-is-a-verb-book-review/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-04-04T10:05:20.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T23:13:28.156Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Why History Looks Different Through a Mother's Eyes og:description: Mother Is a Verb is a blend of history and memoir on motherhood through the ages og:url: https://time.com/5564180/mother-is-a-verb-book-review/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c8b3eaca398a3b3/698947ca97cdff67626b79ba/sarah-knott-mother-is-a-verb-timeoff-book-review.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Sarah Knott Mother is a Verb TimeOff Book Review og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why History Looks Different Through a Mother's Eyes twitter:description: Mother Is a Verb is a blend of history and memoir on motherhood through the ages twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c8b3eaca398a3b3/698947ca97cdff67626b79ba/sarah-knott-mother-is-a-verb-timeoff-book-review.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why History Looks Different Through a Mother's Eyes > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 4, 2019 10:05 AM UTC  Clara Mokri for TIME  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Apr 4, 2019 10:05 AM UTC It’s said that history is written by the victors, but it would also be fair to say it typically isn’t written by people who are busy birthing, nursing or tending to babies, victorious though they may be. Such is the challenge faced by Sarah Knott, a historian who sets out to address that imbalance in _Mother Is a Verb_, her new book that blends memoir and history to tell a story of motherhood through the ages. As Knott describes in an informative note on her methods, traditional history has been summarized as the study of “Men in Public.” Here, under the subtitle _An Unconventional History_, are women in private. (Men, including Knott’s own supportive but loosely sketched partner, do show up in small roles; she notes that she knows of only a single image from the 17th century of a father holding a baby.) Even the most prodigious writers of the past tended to skip this material, deeming it too mundane or too intimate or both. Accordingly, Knott finds fewer sources on her subject than she’d like, a point she makes early and often. Her admirable effort not to rely only on accounts from rich, straight, white English speakers puts her in even more of a bind. So, to examine the past several centuries of mothering on both sides of the pond, she uses her own observations on becoming a parent to weave together archival anecdotes. She paints a picture that covers working-class 20th century Londoners and indigenous Americans, that runs from the cabins of enslaved women to the bedrooms of the colonial elite. The book sings when Knott trusts readers to get the meta-historic point, allowing her eye for choice details (the German word, _Ammenschlaf_, for the light sleep of a new mom, or an early 1900s effort to organize a housewives’ union) to underline the big ideas on her behalf: much changes; much does not. She writes of befriending a more experienced mom who can serve as a source of the calming reminder that the baby is new but parenting isn’t. Knott also turns to history for the same reassurance, and _Mother_, in turn, extends that hand to the world. By starting with the link between mother and baby, and crawling outward into the link between so many mothers, she shows that while infancy is a time when life is measured in days, in its curves are centuries. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5564180/mother-is-a-verb-book-review/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5564180/mother-is-a-verb-book-review/"},"headline":"Why History Looks Different Through a Mother's Eyes","datePublished":"2019-04-04T10:05:20.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T23:13:28.156Z","description":"The historian's new book blends memoir and history to tell the story of motherhood through the ages.","url":"https://time.com/5564180/mother-is-a-verb-book-review/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c8b3eaca398a3b3/698947ca97cdff67626b79ba/sarah-knott-mother-is-a-verb-timeoff-book-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c8b3eaca398a3b3/698947ca97cdff67626b79ba/sarah-knott-mother-is-a-verb-timeoff-book-review.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Sarah Knott Mother is a Verb TimeOff Book Review","caption":"","creditText":"Clara Mokri for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/books/","name":"Books"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5564180/mother-is-a-verb-book-review/","name":"Why History Looks Different Through a Mother's Eyes"}}]}] ```